“I suppose I could consider an omelet,” she said, which was her lofty way of saying “hell, no.”
“It’ll be a good omelet. I promise. Let me get you the paper and I’ll get started.”
Times had certainly changed. When I was younger, it was usually me hunched over the kitchen table, finishing up some neglected homework while Nana bustled over the stove, making breakfast for us. Of course, back then, breakfast was a much more delicious affair—golden waffles, fluffy pancakes, and never-ending plates of bacon or sausage. Now, she occupied herself with the stories in the newspaper while I prepared an approved recipe from her list of acceptable foods for her diet. Today’s omelet consisted of tasteless ground turkey I tried to liven up by sautéing it with mushrooms and onions, sprinkled with hot peppers and fragrant herbs. I chopped up a rainbow of bell peppers, tossing them like confetti among the rest of the ingredients. I added some roasted dried tomatoes for an extra punch of taste, then poured egg whites over everything. I let that cook for a while before attempting to flip it, and cursed softly. The omelet broke apart in the skillet, spilling the contents. It had been so pretty.
“I heard that,” Nana said mildly.
“How do you feel about loaded scrambled eggs this morning instead?” I asked her.
“I like loaded scrambled eggs about as much as I like omelets,” she said. Translation: I don’t care, June, just as long as you feed me.
“Excellent.” I stirred quickly, mixing the rest of the ingredients up. They would still be colorful, at least. I poured us some orange juice and stared longingly at the dusty coffeemaker. I’d wait until I left for work to grab coffee. I probably should’ve gotten rid of that thing. Nana couldn’t have coffee as one of the stipulations of her diet, and that damn thing just reminded her of the delicious beverage she’d lost access to.
“You can fix yourself a pot, you know,” she said, not looking up from the newspaper pages spread across the table. “I don’t mind.” It was Nana who ignited a love for coffee in me, splashing just a little into my morning milk when I was younger, gradually increasing the ratio of coffee to milk as I grew older, until, in my estimation, pure, black coffee with just a splash of milk was the best drink you could get. I knew how much she loved it and how much she missed it, but that caffeine was just too hard on her heart. I fixed her some decaf one time, but she refused, saying it was a poor substitution and would just make her sadder.
“I don’t need it, Nana,” I lied. “Orange juice is fine. Look. Order up!”
I put the plate of steaming hot eggs in front of her, along with her glass.
“Well, June,” she said, smiling. “This is downright colorful.”
“I told you it would be a good omelet…well, loaded scrambled eggs, anyway.”
After breakfast, cleaning up the kitchen, and another shower, it was time for me to go to work.
“Nana, I’m leaving,” I told her. I’d wheeled her into the living room after breakfast. There, she had access to the television and our small library of movies, as well as a bookshelf with books that I tried to refresh from time to time from the discounted offerings at the library, which tried to jettison some of its older volumes by selling them for cheap.
I always felt guilty leaving her, even if we could use the extra money from the delivery gig. She had the television, books, social media, and the phone at her disposal, but I knew she preferred human contact. And I was her most preferred human contact.
“You have a wonderful day,” she said. “I hope you get to deliver pizza to Devon Ray again.”
“I doubt that’ll happen,” I said, laughing uneasily. “You want me to drop you off at the senior center, Nana? It’s on the way to the pizza place.”
“Are you calling me a senior?” she asked, giving me the eye.
“No,” I said. “But I’m pretty sure it’s bingo day, and I know how much you love that.”
“No amount of bingo would make me want to hang out with those old idiots,” she sniffed. “Senile, the lot of them. They all tell the same stories over and over again. You’d think only one thing happened to them in their entire lives.”
I had a brief but vivid vision of myself at a senior center, old and gnarled, telling anyone who’d listen about the time I almost kissed Devon Ray. I shuddered.
“Okay, Nana. I’ll see you tonight, then. Who’s coming this afternoon?”
“It’s my free day,” she said, grinning. I felt even worse that she’d be alone until the end of my shift.
“Well, you enjoy yourself,” I said. “I better not find out that any of my coworkers are delivering pizzas here today.”
“I’m smarter than that,” she retorted. “I call the rival pizza place.”
“You traitor.” I gave her a kiss and left the house.
Getting to work, I discovered that I wasn’t in too much trouble with my manager for skipping the rest of my shift the day before.
“There wasn’t anything I could do,” I said, shrugging. “I was sick. What did you expect? That I’d traipse up and down sidewalks, puking while carrying people’s meals to them? That wouldn’t reflect very well on the company, now, would it?”
“The pizza that you failed to deliver,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “That customer was waiting for delivery for more than ninety minutes.”
“I said I was sorry. It was an emergency. I’m back, though, and ready to work. Let’s set some sales records today, right?”
I grabbed an order that was already set to go and practically ran out the door. I’d learned the trick to working my manager within a couple of weeks of starting my job. Disagree quickly, and then beat it. He couldn’t argue with me if he couldn’t find me, and as long as I was making deliveries efficiently, he wouldn’t bother too much.
I was surprised that he hadn’t tried to deduct money from my pay as retribution for the lost pizzas.
The day passed like most of them did. I counted exactly five naked people peeking out from behind doors as I delivered their meals, no more than usual. My routes took me past the hotel where everything had taken place yesterday, and I wondered if Devon was still there. I supposed I could always swing by and at least shake him down for the money he owed me. If things had gone differently, maybe he would’ve given me a huge tip.
That thought, of course, led me to consider all various definitions of “tip.” God. I couldn’t stop. I was convinced it was that stupid dream. I couldn’t have really wanted to do something with him, could I have?
At last, my wallet heavier now than it had been at the beginning of my shift, I turned toward home. I was so tired that I knew I wouldn’t have any energy to dream tonight, which came as a huge relief as I pulled to a stop in front of the house. It was probably all that manic cleaning I’d done early this morning.
I opened the door and sucked in a breath to announce that I was home, but I paused. Nana was talking excitedly with someone. Was there someone here? I hadn’t noticed a car on the curb, and I parked in my usual spot in front of the house. Maybe she was on the phone.
I shut the door softly and then stopped in my tracks. A very familiar male voice was responding to her, though it was hard to make out the words. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t possible. I knew that voice. I cringed to hear that voice again.
Creeping quietly to the living room, I observed a very animated Nana talking with none other than Devon Ray.
In my house.
Somehow.
“I just loved that beach in your movie,” Nana was gushing. “The way you spun that young lady around in the surf—why, I’d just love to do that. To have someone to do that with me, I suppose. Such a gorgeous place.”
“We were filming on location for that one,” Devon said warmly. Neither of them had spotted me yet. I was keeping to the shadows in the hallway, observing, trying not to lose my mind. “It’s actually this little fishing village in Hawaii. The people there are so kind and gracious, and every evening after shooting, they loved to feed u
s. I gained so much weight during that shoot that they had to edit some of my scenes to hide my gut.”
“I’m sure that’s not true,” Nana said, giggling. “A gut? You? Never.”
The way she simpered at him grated on me. I wanted to spring into the room and tell her what an ass he was, but I forced myself to be still and quiet.
“That was one of my very favorite places to shoot,” Devon said. “I’ve been just dying to go back, really. It’s so unlike anywhere I’ve ever been. The people there treat everyone equally. I was just another person to them. No one special. They’ve invited me to come back, actually. I just need to find the time.”
“It’s like I tell my granddaughter, June,” Nana said. “If it’s important enough to you, you’ll find the time.”
“I will find the time,” he vowed. “Where is your granddaughter? I would’ve thought she’d be off from work around this time, wouldn’t you?”
How in the hell should he know? I cleared my throat loudly, and both of them looked up quickly. Their expressions were so comical that I would’ve laughed—if only I hadn’t been so weirded out. Nana looked like the cat who swallowed the canary, and Devon actually looked scared.
“I just got here,” I said.
“Well, you snuck in here, didn’t you?” Nana said, fluttering her hand over her heart dramatically. “You shouldn’t do that, June. You could scare a person to death.”
“Sorry, Nana,” I said. “I wasn’t trying to sneak. You two seemed to be in a pretty deep conversation.”
“Oh, yes,” she gushed. I noticed that Devon hadn’t spoken up, yet. “I was just telling this nice young man about my very favorite movie of his. You know the one. With the beach.”
“Definitely, the beach,” I said, smiling at her. “It’d be nice if we lived a little closer to the beach, wouldn’t it, Nana?”
“Not just any beach,” she said, shaking her head emphatically. “That beach. The one in the movie. It’s in Hawaii, he said. So secluded. Surrounded by rocks, but then it opens up and you have a spit of sand all to your own. And that water! Like a liquid jewel.”
“I like that,” Devon said, smiling. “A liquid jewel. That’s exactly how it is there. Like nothing else in the world.”
I wasn’t impressed by them waxing poetic. I wanted to know just why this man was in my house, talking to Nana, somehow aware of both my address and my work schedule. Just how long had he been here? What had Nana told him? What had he seen or said?
“What are you doing here?” I asked him after a long period of silence, both Devon and Nana obviously waiting for me to say something. I was proud of myself. I sounded calm and collected, not shrill and panicky, which were the two things I most definitely were.
“June, I wanted to come by and meet my biggest fan,” Devon said, grinning as he squeezed Nana’s shoulder gently. She beamed up at him and I almost melted—almost. I was still way too suspicious of what was happening to relax and think about how adorable Nana was. I could practically smell the bullshit wafting off of Devon, but I wasn’t close enough to detect whether it was still tinged with vodka.
“You let Devon Ray into the house, Nana?” I asked, carefully keeping a smile on my face.
“When someone like Devon Ray comes knocking, you don’t leave him out on the porch,” she said. “Take a picture, June! A better one than before. One with me in it. If that’s okay, Mr. Ray.”
“Please, it’s just Devon,” he said, the very picture of charm. I wondered if maybe it were a magical spell that eventually wore off. Surely to goodness no one could be this charming all the time. Not when I’d seen how disgusting he could be.
“Fine,” Nana said, beaming. “As long as you call me Nana.”
Really, Nana? That put Devon on the same intimacy level with her as me, and they’d only just met. Part of me desperately wanted to burst her bubble about the actor, but I just couldn’t break her heart like that. No matter how badly I wanted to throw Devon under the bus for the way he looked at me and smiled, posing next to her like some long-lost family member.
“A picture, June, a picture,” Nana said impatiently, interrupting my hateful fantasy.
“Here we go,” I said, feigning cheer once more, setting my phone to camera mode. “This is going to be much better than the last photo I took of you, Mr. Ray.”
That perfect smile slipped an inch, and I captured it perfectly.
“Uh-oh,” I said, my own smile getting even wider. “Not your best, Mr. Ray.”
“It’s just Devon,” he said through his smiling, gritted teeth. “Better get another one, just in case.”
“Take a dozen,” Nana hooted, loving every minute of the attention and not caring enough to notice the tension between Devon and me.
I snapped enough good ones to satisfy her and slipped the phone back in my pocket.
“I think at least one of those should go up on social media,” I said, glowering at Devon in spite of the smile I still had frozen on my face. “Those were some good ones, Nana.”
“I thought you didn’t have a social media site,” Devon said, his eyebrows drawing together minutely. He slipped his phone halfway out of his pocket, then seemed to think better of it and jammed it back down in his jeans.
“I don’t,” I said. “But Nana does so she can keep track of all of her friends.”
“It’s the worst thing,” she confided. “So much information. Too much, really. I’d prefer not to know about all their biopsies and colonoscopies and medical procedures. Why would they share something like that with the whole wide world?”
Devon laughed, but he kept his eyes on me. It was surreal enough to be some kind of wonderful dream, with him in our home, only it was a nightmare. I didn’t like the man one bit, and he’d invaded my space, somehow winning Nana over in the process.
“Sometimes people share things online that they don’t realize would be a mistake until after it’s already said and done,” he said.
A mistake? Was he trying to warn me against posting that bad photo of him? Was he threatening me? Here? In front of Nana?
“Or maybe they know exactly what they’re doing,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “Maybe they want the world to know just how ugly they, um…their polyps are.”
“No need to be vulgar,” Nana said, scrunching up her nose at me. “Think of how many likes I’ll get from posting a photo like this one. You’re okay with me posting it, aren’t you, Devon?”
“Of course I am,” he said, grinning at her, full of charisma once again. “But only if we both look good in it. From what I can tell, you’re crazy photogenic. I tend to blink.”
“Oh, you’re sweet,” Nana said. “Isn’t he sweet, June? I don’t think any of his photos come out too terribly.”
I made a noncommittal grunt. “The one I took yesterday was pretty wretched.”
“We all have our bad days,” Nana said.
“That’s right.” Devon’s focus was back on me, and I felt like I was in danger of withering. He really knew how to dial up the smolder. “We all have our bad days, June.”
“Sure thing,” I said weakly.
“Well, I don’t want to keep you all,” Devon said, patting Nana fondly on the shoulder as if she were his own grandmother. I couldn’t help but feel a stab of jealousy at the way she beamed up at him lovingly. “I know you’re both busy people. I was just wondering, though, June, if you could please help me find my car. I parked it a couple of blocks away because I got the directions mixed up, and I’m not familiar with the neighborhood, especially now that it’s dark.”
“I have no idea where you parked,” I said. It sounded a lot like Devon wanted to get me alone.
“Oh, June, for goodness’ sake,” Nana complained. “Help the man. He’s not from here, like we are. It’s completely natural to get turned around. He asked you nicely.”
Sure, he asked me nicely, but I was pretty certain that he was going to stop being so nice once we were outside. Outside, I wasn’t sure what he was p
lanning to do.
“Nana, it was such a pleasure,” Devon said. “I really do think you’re my biggest fan.”
“I bet you say that to everyone,” she said, giving a girlish laugh. I had to smile behind my hand at her.
“I’ll be back in a couple minutes, Nana,” I said, raising my eyebrows in a warning to Devon. “Any longer than that and you better call someone.” Someone like the cops, maybe, or the paparazzi to scare the man away.
“Oh, June, you’re such a teaser,” she said. “Go on, then. I’m sure Devon has places he needs to be.”
“I do, in fact, several,” he confirmed. “Thank you again for your hospitality.” I noticed for the first time the pair of teacups and the plate of cookies between them. God—how long had he been here? All evening?
“Be right back, Nana,” I said again as a reminder to him. He followed me to the front door and I practically pushed him through it.
“Hey, careful,” he said as he stumbled out onto the front stoop.
“You be careful,” I shot back lamely. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here, anyway? This is my house. How did you even get the address?”
“It wasn’t hard,” he said. “I called the pizza place. Got some more details about you. Made some other calls until I found the place.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, hard, and rubbed my forehead. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re even here.”
“Look, I’m just trying to do some damage control,” Devon said, his million-watt smile fading from his face. It was almost a relief, as if I were going to go blind if I kept staring at it for too long.
“What kind of damage control?” I asked, frowning at him. “And why did you have to drag Nana into this? When she figures out what kind of person you really are, you’re just going to disappoint her. Couldn’t you do without that on your conscience—disappointing a little old lady?”
“She was nothing but pleased in there,” he said. “The only person who would disappoint her would be you.”
What ripe new bullshit was this? “Watch your goddamn mouth,” I warned him. “You don’t know anything about Nana, and you know even less about me.”
Billionaires In Love (Vol. 2): 5 Books Billionaire Romance Bundle Page 22
